The chairman of the Hillary Clinton campaign trashed the Democratic presidential candidate’s close confidant Sidney Blumenthal in a leaked email released this week.

“Sid is lost in his own web of conspiracies,” John Podesta wrote to opinion writer Brent Budowsky in January. “I pay zero attention to what he says.”

Blumenthal is one of Clinton’s closest confidantes, and he appears to be a polarising figure within the Clintons’ orbit.

Budowsky had emailed Podesta to express his amazement at Clinton’s relationship with him.

“It is disquieting that when HRC was secretary of state she spent a good time of time doing gossip emails with Sid Blumenthal about various matters,” Budowsky wrote, continuing later: “Why she places such great stock over so much time in these exchanges with Blumenthal is mystifying to me — and frankly troublesome.”

He then concluded: “This whole subject, to use vernacular, gives me the creeps. Secretaries of state, presidential candidates and presidents should not be spending their time on this kind of minor league stuff.”

It’s evident from other emails as well that Podesta doesn’t seem to hold Blumenthal in the highest regard.

He wrote in another email last year that Blumenthal lacks “self awareness or self respect.”

“Will you promise to shoot me if I ever end up like that?” Podesta wrote.

The messages were included in a massive Wikileaks dump of Podesta’s emails. The Clinton campaign has blamed Russia for the hack.